If I load MSI with only it's mandatory pre-requisites (alien-biomes, cold-biters, explosive-biters, factoroi -crash, informatron, rocket-sil), then it crashes when you try to start a new game:

40.270 Error AppManager.cpp:686: The mod Mining Space Industries II (0.1.22) caused a non-recoverable error.
Please report this error to the mod author.
Error while running event Mining-Space-Industries-II::on_configuration_changed
Mining-Space-Industries-II/control.lua:665: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value)
stack traceback:
Mining-Space-Industries-II/control.lua:665: in function 'update_force_settings'
Mining-Space-Industries-II/control.lua:755: in function 'update_all_forces_settings'
Mining-Space-Industries-II/control.lua:127: in function <Mining-Space-Industries-II/control.lua:124>

Are you sure it is a new game ?
Does not looks like because it goes through "update_all_forces_settings", a function that is only called on loaded games. I have also tested a new game here, with no crash.

Yep, single player > new game

Not happening here. Tested again

I re-downloaded the 1.1.6 factorio (zipped version), extracted it to a new directory (c:\games), and put in the mod directory the latest version of MSI (0.1.23), alien biomes (0.6.3), cold biters (1.0.14), explosive biters (1.0.31), factorio crash site (1.0.31), informatron (0.2.1) & rocket silo construction (1.0.28).
As soon as I try and start a new game (single player > New Game > Play (accept all defaults), it crashes, every time. Tried on 2 different computers now and it consistently crashes.

64.549 Error AppManager.cpp:686: The mod Mining Space Industries II (0.1.23) caused a non-recoverable error.
Please report this error to the mod author.
Error while running event Mining-Space-Industries-II::on_configuration_changed
Mining-Space-Industries-II/control.lua:673: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value)
stack traceback:
Mining-Space-Industries-II/control.lua:673: in function 'update_force_settings'
Mining-Space-Industries-II/control.lua:763: in function 'update_all_forces_settings'
Mining-Space-Industries-II/control.lua:133: in function <Mining-Space-Industries-II/control.lua:130>

OK, that's so weird.. If I ALSO download Space Exploration, it now opens without a problem, but without SE I get the error above.

So still a bug somewhere I think, but since it works I'm happy to pretend it's not ;)

(Great mod by the way!!)

Good to know. I still dont get the error here without SE. The event on_configuration_changed should not be called on new games, as it is happening to you.